Learn the "how" and "why" of composting with Westport-based author Scott Smith, Park City Compost Initiative founder and executive director Tim O'Connor, and Sustainable Westport co-director Gately Ross.
Composting not only benefits a backyard garden; it can be a simple, homemade solution for bigger issues such as reducing waste, improving soil, boosting biodiversity, and combating climate change. Backyard composting also strengthens efforts in making communities more sustainable and environmentally friendly. Whether you have a garden or not, composting can be a small way to make a big change.
Books will be available for purchase and signing at the event.
Scott Smith is a longtime Westport resident, avid gardener, and author of On Compost: A Year in the Life of a Suburban Garden. Smith's book illustrates how composting can reduce waste, enrich soil, and combat climate change. More than just a guide to composting, On Compost is a heartfelt ode to community and connection. Through his narrative, Smith shows how a simple compost heap can bring neighbors together, foster a sense of community, and create shared experiences. Smith's passion for sustainability is infectious, and his detailed guidance makes it easy for readers to start their own composting journey.
Tim O'Connor is the executive director and certified transfer station/volume reduction facility operator by CT DEEP at Park City Compost. He worked for Scott Paper, Cannondale Associates and Diageo before starting his own consulting company. He serves on a number of non-profit boards in the arts, education, and community development.
Dr. Gately Ross joined Sustainable Westport as co-director in September 2021, bringing a strong commitment to sustainability and conservation. Throughout her career, she has focused on the health and conservation of wild and domestic animals and their environment. She combines her extensive clinical veterinary practice experience with a deep understanding of ecology and the impact of human activities on populations and ecosystems. Gately uses her expertise to foster sustainable practices, create projects, and build partnerships that engage and inspire Westport residents to join Sustainable Westport’s mission. Gately has called Westport home since 2007, with her husband, their three sons, and their rescue dog.
Special thanks to our Community Partners: Aspetuck Land Trust, Earthplace, Sustainable Westport, Wakeman Town Farm, Westport Farmers' Market, and Westport Garden Club.
***
The Library is pleased to be able to offer free programs and events through the generous donations of patrons like you. Please consider giving to the Library so that we can continue to offer events like this one. Your donation is tax deductible. Donate Now!
Composting
Lawn & Garden
Living a Clean Life
Find adventure in your own backyard as The Westport Library celebrates the spirit of exploration with A Night at The Explorers Club!
Join Westport/Weston’s own Richard Wiese, president emeritus of The Explorers Club and host of the multi-Emmy-winning TV show Born to Explore, on Thursday, August 15, as he hosts an unforgettable evening alongside his colleagues and fellow explorers.
The performance runs 7 to 9 pm in the Library’s Trefz Forum. Tickets for this event are free. Register to attend here.
Accompanying Wiese on stage will be an extraordinary lineup of explorers, including Lhakpa Sherpa, who holds the record for the most Mt. Everest summits by a woman; Dr. Nina Lanza, principal investigator on the Mars Rover's ChemCam; and astronaut Richard Garriott, current president of The Explorers Club and a pioneer in private space exploration.
Also appearing will be a who’s who of notable world-class explorers: co-founder of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation, Morad Tahbaz; documentary filmmaker Brendan Hall; entrepreneur and founder of cultural preservation company Roots Studio, Rebecca Hui; and globally featured artist and writer James Prosek.
Since its inception, The Explorers Club has been dedicated to the mission of exploring land, sea, air, and space. Several of the club’s alumni have pioneered the “famous firsts” of 20th century exploration, including Matthew Henson and Robert Peary, the club's third president, who "discovered" the North Pole in 1909, followed by the discovery of the South Pole by member Roald Amundsen in 1911. Club members Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the first to summit Everest in 1953, and the lowest point on Earth, the Mariana Trench, was attained by Explorers Club Honorary President Don Walsh and Club Fellow Jacques Piccard in 1960. In addition, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins reached the moon in 1969 carrying The Explorers Club flag.
Since he climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro at age 11, Wiese has circled the globe, capturing powerful images and living one adventure after another — from traveling with Bedouins in Africa to cross-country skiing to the North Pole. He also achieved the first ascent of an unclimbed mountain in Alaska and discovered 29 new life forms on Mt. Kilimanjaro.
Growing up on Long Island’s north shore, Wiese recalls spending most of his time outside, fishing and exploring the woods. But even after journeying to all seven continents, tagging jaguars in the Yucatan jungles, leading expeditions to Australia’s Northern Territory, and participating in the largest medical expedition ever conducted on Mt. Everest, he still finds adventure anywhere — including the Westport and Weston area, where he now lives with his family.
Westport has served as Wiese’s home base since the inception of Born to Explore. Though its eight seasons traverse the globe, each episode was produced on Westport’s own Main Street. And Wiese has openly admired Connecticut’s accessibility to the Appalachian Trail, seeing a bald eagle swooping overhead while fishing with his sons on the Saugatuck River, and finding opportunities for adventure and exploration in the Nutmeg State.
"The world of exploration is a tapestry of diverse perspectives,” said Wiese, “each thread contributing to a richer understanding of our planet."
Wiese’s philosophy is as much about discovery of the natural world as it is about encouraging a positive understanding of the many distinctive cultures on earth. Throughout his career, Wiese has remained dedicated to uplifting voices from local communities around the world. He believes the most memorable aspect of any journey is not about reaching “the summit,” but the people you share your experiences with along the way.
Climate change and the fight for racial justice are two of the most pressing issues of our time. And they are not independent events, but interconnected realities that impact how we interact with our natural world and how the changes in our natural world affect people everywhere.
On June 1, Roosevelt Institute Director of Climate Policy Rhiana Gunn-Wright will explore these interconnections between environmental justice and racial justice with the Westport community in a can’t-miss talk held at 7 pm in The Westport Library’s Trefz Forum. (Click here to register.)
In the talk, Gunn-Wright will discuss how to cultivate regional responses to the climate crisis, recognizing that environmental impacts cross town lines.
The event is part of a Lilly Foundation-funded initiative at the Saugatuck Congregational Church to “embrace our coastal community” and is the result of a community partnership featuring the Library, the Congregational Church, TEAM Westport, and Sustainable Westport.
“To reverse the climate crisis, we need to think and live regionally,” said Saugatuck Congregational Church Rev. Alison J. B. Patton, “recognizing our interdependence with neighbors across town lines and learning from those who have been most directly impacted by climate events and environmentally unsustainable practices. How do we ensure that all people and parts of our shared ecosystem can flourish?”
“This vitally important talk was inspired by Westport's commitment to becoming a sustainable, thriving community — economically, environmentally, and socially — and by our ongoing community-based efforts to dismantle systemic racism,” said Harold Bailey Jr., chair of TEAM Westport. “It is a significant opportunity for each of us to build awareness that the sustainability of our most distressed regional neighbors today could easily signal the sustainability of our own community tomorrow.”
Gunn-Wright leads the Roosevelt Institute’s research at the intersection of climate policy, public investment, racial equity, and public power. Along with her colleagues, Gunn-Wright aims to create a body of work that examines the role of economic policy and large-scale economic transformation in catalyzing just and rapid responses to the climate crisis. She also supports Roosevelt’s engagement with the Green New Deal Network and other partners in the climate movement.
Prior to joining Roosevelt, Gunn-Wright was the policy director for New Consensus, charged with developing and promoting the Green New Deal, and the policy director for Abdul El-Sayed’s 2018 Michigan gubernatorial campaign. A 2013 Rhodes Scholar, she has also worked as the policy analyst for the Detroit Health Department, acted as the Mariam K. Chamberlain Fellow of Women and Public Policy at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, and served on the policy team for former First Lady Michelle Obama.
“We are remarkably fortunate to have such an esteemed expert as Rhiana Gunn-Wright here to discuss how climate justice and racial justice intertwine and impact each other,” said Westport Library Executive Director Bill Harmer. “This is a timely and important event for Westport and the greater Fairfield County community as we all work together to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to grow and thrive — now and for generations to come.”
In this public lecture delivered in the Library's Trefz Forum, Roosevelt Institute Director of Climate Policy Rhiana Gunn-Wright will explore the interconnections between environmental and racial justice and discuss how to cultivate regional responses to the climate crisis, recognizing that environmental impacts cross town lines.
The talk is inspired by Westport's commitment to becoming a sustainable, thriving community — economically, environmentally, and socially — and by our ongoing community-based efforts to dismantle systemic racism. It was conceived as part of a Lilly Foundation-funded initiative at Saugatuck Congregational Church to “embrace our coastal community.”
In case you missed the event, you may watch the recorded program here.
Gunn-Wright leads the Roosevelt Institute’s research at the intersection of climate policy, public investment, racial equity, and public power. Along with her colleagues, Gunn-Wright aims to create a body of work that examines the role of economic policy and large-scale economic transformation in catalyzing just and rapid responses to the climate crisis. She also supports Roosevelt’s engagement with the Green New Deal Network and other partners in the climate movement.
Prior to joining Roosevelt, Gunn-Wright was the policy director for New Consensus, charged with developing and promoting the Green New Deal, and the policy director for Abdul El-Sayed’s 2018 Michigan gubernatorial campaign. A 2013 Rhodes Scholar, she has also worked as the policy analyst for the Detroit Health Department, acted as the Mariam K. Chamberlain Fellow of Women and Public Policy at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, and served on the policy team for former First Lady Michelle Obama.
Community Partners: Saugatuck Congregational Church, TEAM Westport, and Sustainable Westport
Sustainability
Science Reference Center
The Westport Garden Club presents entomologist Doug Tallamy via Zoom, who will speak about how what humans plant affect the ecosystem in profound ways. Recent headlines about global insect declines and 3 billion fewer birds in North America are a bleak reality check about how ineffective our current landscape designs have been at sustaining the plants and animals that sustain us.
To create landscapes that enhance local ecosystems rather than degrade them, we must 1) remove the invasives on our property and 2) add the native plant communities that sustain food webs, sequester carbon, maintain diverse native bee communities, and manage our watersheds. If we do this in half of the area now in lawn, we can create Homegrown National Park, a 20 million acre network of viable habitats that will provide vital corridors connecting the few natural areas that remain. This approach to conservation empowers everyone to play a significant role in the future of the natural world.
iF YOU MISSED THE EVENT YOU MAY WATCH HERE
Community Partner: The Westport Garden Clubn event.
If you are unable to attend in person, please log in here to watch the event.
Doug Tallamy is the T. A. Baker Professor of Agriculture in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, where he has authored 106 research publications and has taught insect-related courses for 41 years. Chief among his research goals is to better understand the many ways insects interact with plants and how such interactions determine the diversity of animal communities. His books include Bringing Nature Home, The Living Landscape, co-authored with Rick Darke, Nature's Best Hope, a New York Times Best Seller, The Nature of Oaks, winner of the American Horticultural Society’s 2022 book award.
In 2021, he cofounded Homegrown National Park with Michelle Alfandari. His awards include recognition from The Garden Writer’s Association, Audubon, The National Wildlife Federation, Allegheny College, The Garden Club of America, and The American Horticultural Association.
The United Nations Association of Southwestern Connecticut presents the first Ruth Steinkraus Cohen Memorial Lecture. Dr. Mary Evelyn Tucker will discuss how to inspire people to preserve, protect and restore the Earth community. As co-founder of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, Dr. Tucker seeks to identify different perspectives among the religions of the world to find comprehensive and collaborative solutions to our global environmental crisis in partnership with scientists and policy makers. Her talk and the discussion afterward will provoke questions and inspiration drawn from her award winning film, Journey of the Universe.
IF YOU MISSED THE EVENT, YOU MAY WATCH THE RECORDING HERE
Mary Evelyn Tucker teaches at Yale University at the School of the Environment and the Divinity School. She is co-director with John Grim of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology. With Brian Thomas Swimme, Tucker and Grim created a multi-media project Journey of the Universe that includes a book (Yale, 2011), an Emmy Award winning film, a series of podcast Conversations, and free online courses from Yale/Coursera. Tucker was a member of the Earth Charter Drafting committee and the International Earth Charter Council. She won the Inspiring Yale Teaching Award in 2015 and has been awarded 5 honorary degrees. With John Grim, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture.
Click to view Journey of the Universe, password: whowouldyoube619
For more information: Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology
Journey of the Universe
Religions and Ecology Online Classes
The Southwestern Connecticut Chapter of the United Nations Association has been promoting the ideals and work for the United Nations for over 60 years. Its founder, Ruth Steinkraus Cohen, worked tirelessly to support the UN. She established June Day, when Westport welcomes the staff and delegates of the UN, in 1965. The downtown bridge is named in her honor and the member nations flag fly each United Nations Day. The Chapter plans to bring a topical and thought-provoking speaker each year to the Westport Library on United Nations Day.
Living a Clean Life
Sustainability
Open Spaces
Food has the power to transform. From where it is grown through consumption, food transforms us along its journey from seed to plate. But what journey is your food taking? And is it reaching everybody? Do we all have access to healthy and nutritious foods?
Chef Michel Nischan has some answers! Join us for a lively discussion on food access and food choice, and how we can all play a part to create a more equitable and sustainable food system.
“Food as a single subject has more impact on human health, environmental health, societal health, and economic health than any other subject.” - Chef Michel Nischan
IF YOU MISSED THE EVENT YOU CAN WATCH HERE
Community Partners: Sustainable Westport, Westport Farmers' Market
“If we fix food, we have the ability to fix so many problems. It will take all of us – chefs, consumers, politicians, farmers, food producers of all sizes, and nonprofit leaders – to make this change.” - Chef Michel Nischan
Michel Nischan is a four-time James Beard Award-winning chef with more than 35 years of leadership advocating for a more healthful, sustainable food system. He is founder and president of Wholesome Crave, a food company selling responsibly sourced, plant-forward soups to large-scale dining facilities, and now available direct-to-consumer. A portion of the gross sales from Wholesome Crave products benefit Wholesome Wave, the nonprofit food equity organization for which Michel serves as co-founder and executive chairman. He is also co-founder of the James Beard Foundation’s Chefs Boot Camps for Policy and Change, as well as founder and partner with the late actor Paul Newman in the former Dressing Room Restaurant.
Michel is the author of three cookbooks on healthful and sustainable food, and he is an active thought leader advocating for the right of all in America to exercise their right to feed themselves and their families well, regardless of race, ethnicity, income, or economic condition.
The Dinner Disrupted series is a partnership of libraries in Fairfield County and New Haven County, Connecticut, encouraging patrons to play a more active role in their food system by engaging in collective discussions and actions focusing on food security, climate change, land use, and agriculture.
Sustainability
Food Insecurity
Celebrate Oaktober by joining members of the Earthplace naturalist team and the Westport Tree Board in discussing The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees by Doug Tallamy. This event is scheduled to be at Earthplace, 10 Woodside Lane.
Reservations are suggested for this in-person event. Copies of the book are available at the patron service desk at the Westport Library and electronically.
With Bringing Nature Home, Doug Tallamy changed the conversation about gardening in America. His second book, the New York Times bestseller Nature’s Best Hope, urged homeowners to take conservation into their own hands. Now, he turns his advocacy to one of the most important species of the plant kingdom—the mighty oak tree.
Oaks sustain a complex and fascinating web of wildlife. The Nature of Oaks reveals what is going on in oak trees month by month, highlighting the seasonal cycles of life, death, and renewal. From woodpeckers who collect and store hundreds of acorns for sustenance to the beauty of jewel caterpillars, Tallamy illuminates and celebrates the wonders that occur right in our own backyards. He also shares practical advice about how to plant and care for an oak, along with information about the best oak species for your area. The Nature of Oaks will inspire you to treasure these trees and to act to nurture and protect them.
Community Partners: The Westport Tree Board, Earthplace,
Join members of the Earthplace naturalist team in discussing topics of environmental issues, sustainability, nature or science. This month's book is All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Dr. Katharine K. Wilkinson.
Named one of the best books of the year by Smithsonian Magazine! There is a renaissance blooming in the climate movement: leadership that is more characteristically feminine and more faithfully feminist, rooted in compassion, connection, creativity, and collaboration. While it’s clear that women and girls are vital voices and agents of change for this planet, they are too often missing from the proverbial table. More than a problem of bias, it’s a dynamic that sets us up for failure. To change everything, we need everyone.
This event is scheduled to be at Earthplace, 10 Woodside Lane. Reservations are suggested for this in-person event.
Copies of the book are available at the patron service desk at the Westport Library.
All We Can Save illuminates the expertise and insights of dozens of diverse women leading on climate in the United States—scientists, journalists, farmers, lawyers, teachers, activists, innovators, wonks, and designers, across generations, geographies, and race—and aims to advance a more representative, nuanced, and solution-oriented public conversation on the climate crisis. These women offer a spectrum of ideas and insights for how we can rapidly, radically reshape society.
Intermixing essays with poetry and art, this book is both a balm and a guide for knowing and holding what has been done to the world, while bolstering our resolve never to give up on one another or our collective future. Curated by two climate leaders, the book is a collection and celebration of visionaries who are leading us on a path toward all we can save.
Read the Rolling Stone Magazine article
With essays and poems by: Emily Atkin • Xiye Bastida • Ellen Bass • Colette Pichon Battle • Jainey K. Bavishi • Janine Benyus • adrienne maree brown • Régine Clément • Abigail Dillen • Camille T. Dungy • Rhiana Gunn-Wright • Joy Harjo • Katharine Hayhoe • Mary Annaïse Heglar • Jane Hirshfield • Mary Anne Hitt • Ailish Hopper • Tara Houska, Zhaabowekwe • Emily N. Johnston • Joan Naviyuk Kane • Naomi Klein • Kate Knuth • Ada Limón • Louise Maher-Johnson • Kate Marvel • Gina McCarthy • Anne Haven McDonnell • Sarah Miller • Sherri Mitchell, Weh’na Ha’mu Kwasset • Susanne C. Moser • Lynna Odel • Sharon Olds • Mary Oliver • Kate Orff • Jacqui Patterson • Leah Penniman • Catherine Pierce • Marge Piercy • Kendra Pierre-Louis • Varshini • Prakash • Janisse Ray • Christine E. Nieves Rodriguez • Favianna Rodriguez • Cameron Russell • Ash Sanders • Judith D. Schwartz • Patricia Smith • Emily Stengel • Sarah Stillman • Leah Cardamore Stokes • Amanda Sturgeon • Maggie Thomas • Heather McTeer Toney • Alexandria Villaseñor • Alice Walker • Amy Westervelt • Jane Zelikova
Community Partner: Earthplace
Corban Addison comes to Westport to discuss his new nonfiction book, Wastelands: The True Story of Farm Country on Trial, with Sustainable Westport's Johanna Martell. As vivid and fast-paced as a thriller, Wastelands takes us into the heart of a legal battle over the future of America’s farmland and into the lives of the people who found the courage to fight. With journalistic rigor and a novelist’s instinct for story, Corban Addison's Wastelands captures the inspiring struggle to bring a modern-day monopoly to its knees, to force a once-invincible corporation to change, and to preserve the rights—and restore the heritage—of a long-suffering community.
"Beautifully written, impeccably researched, and told with the air of suspense that few writers can handle, Wastelands is a story I wish I had written." —From the Foreword by John Grisham
Community Partner: Sustainable Westport
Corban Addison is the internationally best-selling author of four novels, A Walk Across the Sun, The Garden of Burning Sand, The Tears of Dark Water (winner of the inaugural Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize), and A Harvest of Thorns, all of which address some of today’s most pressing human rights issues. He is also an attorney, activist, and world traveler.
Johanna Martell joined Sustainable Westport as Co-Director in September of 2021 and hopes to leverage this experience to increase awareness and community support for Sustainable Westport’s initiatives to enable Westport to become a Net Zero community by 2050. She has over fifteen years of experience as a legal and business advisor, both in-house and at leading global law firms, with a focus on commercial real estate, corporate, tax and estate planning. Johanna holds an undergraduate degree in political economy from Princeton University and a juris doctorate from Georgetown University Law Center.
Dinner Distrupted is a series created in partnership with libraries in Fairfield and New Haven County engaging patrons in collective discussions and actions focused on engaging residents to play a more active role in their food system. Imagine a future where the public grounds are a food forests, adding biodiversity to the landscape, which ultimately helps to improve air quality, regenerate the soil, aids with water conservation, and increases public health and wellbeing. Food security is defined as the state of having reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious foods. What affects food security is policy, zoning, land use, and increasingly, climate change.
PLEASE WATCH THE RECORDED CONVERSATION HERE.
This book is perfect for:
Stephen Heyman, author of The Planter of Modern Life will talk about America's most famous farmer inspired the organic food movement.
Louis Bromfield was a World War I ambulance driver, a Paris expat, and a Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist as famous in the 1920s as Hemingway or Fitzgerald. But he cashed in his literary success to finance a wild agrarian dream in his native Ohio. The ideas he planted at his utopian experimental farm, Malabar, would inspire America’s first generation of organic farmers and popularize the tenets of environmentalism years before Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.
“A brilliant, engaging read about the life of a literary icon and, until now, unrecognized founder of the organic movement.” Dan Barber
Please register for this virtual program.
Community Partner: Wakeman Town Farm, The Westport Garden Club
Sthttps://www.wakemantownfarm.org/ephen Heyman is a writer and editor based in Innsbruck, Austria. His first book, The Planter of Modern Life, a biography of the Lost Generation novelist and visionary farmer Louis Bromfield, won the IACP Award for literary/historical food writing and was long-listed for the Plutarch Prize for best biography. A former features editor at T: The New York Times Style Magazine, he has written for The Times, Condé Nast Traveler, Slate, Vogue and the Wall Street Journal, among others. In 2018, he was named a fellow at the Leon Levy Center for Biography and a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar.
Open Spaces
Natural Science Series
Pollinator Pathways
Join members of the Earthplace naturalist team in discussing topics of environmental issues, sustainability, nature or science. This month's book is Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach. This event is scheduled to be at Earthplace, 10 Woodside Lane.
Reservations are suggested for this in-person event. Copies of the book are available at the patron service desk at the Westport Library.
What’s to be done about a jaywalking moose? A bear caught breaking and entering? A murderous tree? Three hundred years ago, animals that broke the law would be assigned legal representation and put on trial. These days, as New York Times best-selling author Mary Roach discovers, the answers are best found not in jurisprudence but in science: the curious science of human-wildlife conflict, a discipline at the crossroads of human behavior and wildlife biology.
Combining little-known forensic science and conservation genetics with a motley cast of laser scarecrows, langur impersonators, and trespassing squirrels, Roach reveals as much about humanity as about nature’s lawbreakers. When it comes to “problem” wildlife, she finds, humans are more often the problem—and the solution. Fascinating, witty, and humane, Fuzz offers hope for compassionate coexistence in our ever-expanding human habitat.
“Nobody does weird science quite like [Mary Roach].” —Lexi Pandell, Wired
Read the New York Times review.
Community Partner: Earthplace
